More from the “weather is not climate department”.
Flurries hit southeast Australia as towns record their first-ever summer snowfalls
CANBERRA, Australia – Australia is following its second-hottest year on record with extraordinary snow flurries in its southeastern alpine region, where some towns have recorded their first-ever summer snowfalls.
Australia’s temperatures during the summer months of December through February can be uncomfortably hot even on its highest peak, Mount Kosciuszko, which stands a modest 7,310 feet (2,228 metres) above sea level.
Snow fell to 3,000 feet (900 metres) above sea level Monday in parts of New South Wales and Victoria states, Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Jane Golding said.
“Any time of year, it’s unusual to have snow down that far,” she said.
…
The town of Bombala in New South Wales, east of Kosciuszko, recorded its first summer snow since the bureau began keeping records there in 1965, Golding said.
The town of Cooma, also in New South Wales but north of Kosciuszko, recorded its first summer snow since records were first kept in 1973.
Cooma resident Krystal Pernitsch said the wind chill factor made Monday’s high temperature of 59 degrees (15 degrees Celsius) feel like 48 degrees (9 Celsius).
Wow! That is bizarre!
I thought that the Arctic’s “frigid parade” is just moving down from the north pole to the equator. It seems it has already surpassed the equator and jumped to the southern hemisphere?
Has the BBC found the Answer ?
Weather with a Kiwi accent will sound so much brighter than it really is .
Met Office under a cloud as BBC considers breaking 90-year partnership
well I knew it was cold in Vic today…but what? well there goes the melon seedlings:-)
Anyone? know where records of Australias Glaciated areas were in times past, just curious, I know Victor harbour was one spot..or was it Willunga? or both:-)
there seem to be no maps? whereas the Nth hem is available on iceage now nothing shows the Sth.
Beneath the tip of the Climategate iceberg is this emerging shadow of an unholy alliance of Politicians, Scientists, and Publishers – directed by a still invisible world government.
The PSP plan that WUWT and other internet blogs have frustrated:
a.) Al Gore was to become the first President, King or Savior.
b.) NAS => NAP [National Academy of Sciences became the NA Propaganda].
c.) EPA => NAP tool [“CO2 is a dangerous pollutant”].
d.) National sovereignty/boarders/governments were to disappear.
e.) Democracies would vanish.
That’s how it looks from here,
Oliver K. Manuel
Former NASA PI for Apollo
Emeritus Professor
Nuclear & Space Studies
Like the iguanas in Florida, do they have koala falling down trees when it’s cold?
RE the BBC-they should contact Joe Bastardi or Piers Corbyn….
This snow’s going play havoc with the warmists favorite toy-
Fire Season!!! Always used in both hemispheres for fun and
amusement by the warmists.-I speak from personal experience…
I believe that we have to keep on this “Weather is not climate” train. IF the data keep going up, and up, and up, AND it keeps feeling colder, and colder, and colder we will have to constantly continue to mention this to people. Or, I fear that the masses may actually think that colder is warmer, believing the mantra.
I actually think this could already be happening.
Oliver K. Manuel writes: “Beneath the tip of the Climategate iceberg is this emerging shadow of an unholy alliance of Politicians, Scientists, and Publishers ā directed by a still invisible world government.”
What does this have to do with the weather in Australia?
Pachauri has been caught taking funds and having nothing for records on how they are spent. He is close to Meltdown.
The IPCC is taking entrails readings as peer/pal reviewed science.
We are facing a tsunami and it isn’t pretty.
Australia is learning rtapidly. Keep it up. climate Depot is busier than ever with stories now finally arriving. CO2 is the opiate of the ecoterrorists. They get a little sniff and get very aggitated.
Ahh Haa!! Ice Ages DO come from both directions at the same time. Ain’t the weather a beach? I mean climate. Ain’t climate a beach?
Australia is following its second-hottest year on record,
Is that the second hottest record at the airport.
Here’s a link with a great graphic
http://www.longrangeweather.com/global_temperatures.htm
If it’s accurate, it tells us that while warming seems to have an upper limit, cooling does not have a lower limit. Also, and this is the disturbing part, there appears to be a trend for every new cold portion of the cycle to be colder than the previous one, as well as their occurrence increasing in frequency.
Hi everyone,
Oliver K. Manuel has mentioned the likelihood of a world government – or should we better say: “dictatorship”? Many people still can not believe it could go that far. Therefore I would like to add this link here, may be some of you do not know about this yet:
http://www.greattransformation.eu/index.php/about-the-conference
Please have a closer look at point 4) at the bottom…
Regards from darkening Germany
Christian
Were there any global scale trends that caused this?
Mike Ramsey
“Wow! That is bizarre!”
Almost as bizarre as naming an Australian mountain after a Polish general.
I blame Mel Gibson
This is nothing special. A day or two of snow falls on Vic & NSW mountains happens once in every 4 or 5 summers.
Lets not overreact and become Coldeners !
Keep Calling it “Global Warming”.
Warmists will be humiliated every time “Global Warming” is mentioned.
That’s what they claim the co2 does. Forget “Climate Change”.
Their term “Global Warming” will remind them it is folly every time it is used.
Maybe it will sink in someday……
Isn’t weather interesting (or is it bizarre?). We get weather here too, just like those in the northern hemisphere.
Hot last week (40C (104F) last Tuesday), a cool south-westerly brought a chilly 20C (68F) yesterday, but back to an expected 38C this Thursday and 40C this Friday. I looked out the window yesterday afternoon and couldn’t see snow on the mountain (Victoria’s highest and Australia’s second highest), but it happens, even in summer – probably didn’t stay on the ground which, after all, would be quite warm.
Must be a slow news day.
I am so confused right now. Warming, summer, snow, barbeques, cold snap, glacial melt, BOOM ! I’ve reached a tipping point.
Cue the naked man at the piano. And now for something completely different.
So Australia have record hot …and snow. So, they were right all the time. The weather has become extreme. We didn’t listen!
Also CO2 causes a new ice age, due to scientists:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Earth/Greenhouse_gases_may_trigger_ice_age/articleshow/3934692.cms
“Forget warming, greenhouse gases may trigger ice age”
Aaaaaah!
This article should be titled “Glaciers in (New South) Wales?”
A bit OT but the question is still snow:
One of the issues of warming has been that glaciers will disappear and because they now provide storage for summer irrigation, that too would be gone. However, if glaciers grow more from melting less would that not reduce summer flow in the drainage? However, a growing valley glacier will soon extend farther down-valley to a lower elevation where melting will be faster. However, if the growth of glaciers is brought on by colder temperatures and this is region-wide then the nearby lower valley crops might have shorter growing seasons and fewer degree days.
I bring this up because in the State of Washington east of the Cascades the snow and glacial ice is the source of much late-season irrigation water. In this current water-year we are already hearing about the low snow amounts. This seems to fit the El Nino pattern very well so it is not a surprise, nor are the currently warm temps a surprise. The pattern seems well known.
I havenāt seen much of this potential of growing glaciers to cause a problem of the same type as disappearing glaciers. Just wondering.
Anthony,
Why is this not the headline on your Site this AM? To me it his just about as big as Climatgate itself…..TIA John.
From thread on The Himalayan fiasco Below
nofreewind (18:15:27) :
Down goes the Himalayan Glacier āpillarā. This is OT and a few years old, but shouldnāt be missed, proves They did the same shenanigans with hurricane as has now been exposed with Himalayan Glaciers.
Chris Landsea former NOAA and now National Hurricane Center hurricane expert and contributing IPCC author, resigning from IPCC.
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/science_policy_general/000318chris_landsea_leaves.html
Note: The first comments is from William Connolley.
Most interesting is the resignation follow-up email correspondence between Landsea and IPCC notables(aka The Liars Club), including Trenberth and Pauchari. Even includes all the email addyās for those of you who are looking for pen pals.
Landsea is a Man of Great Character in my book, although I know there are many who resigned rather than go with the gravy train of consensus.
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/ipcc-correspondence.pdf
New milestone Anthony. When I type watts in google your site is now the first suggestion. Congratulations.
yonason: At the link you posted, the authors write: “We, Cliff Harris and Randy Mann, believe that the warming and even the cooling of global temperatures are the result of long-term climatic cycles, solar activity, sea-surface temperature patterns and more. ”
Very interesting, but these authors write that they “believe.” That suggests that this is not based on peer-reviewed science. In their bios, neither author reports any scientific training or other interaction with the large body of climate scientists. That suggests their work is not ready for prime time.
Henry chance: “CO2 is the opiate of the ecoterrorists. ” This is the only thing in your post that seems to deal with science. What are you saying about CO2 here?
The South Western Cape in South Africa, boasts a number of glacier plains and valleys in the Hex River region and further northwards. I believe the last Ice Age in that area was 65o million to 450 million years ago. Driving down from Kimberley one can see a number of the distinctive U shaped valleys cut through the mountain chains.
Sure cooling has a limit.. Zero Degrees Kelvin! š
Well, that’s meridional flow f’r ya.
” jryan (09:03:03) :
Sure cooling has a limit.. Zero Degrees Kelvin! š ”
Right. But you wanted to say: Zero Kelvin (corrected in 1967).
K. Bray : “Thatās what they claim the co2 does.”
Are you suggesting that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas? If that’s your point, then what’s your evidence?
Good thing they moved the monitoring station to sea level! We can’t have something like this getting into the official record; it’d mess up climate change research! š
Blimey!
Miss-spoke??
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/copenhagen/article6959509.ece
“Christian Ermecke (07:49:39) :
Hi everyone,
Oliver K. Manuel has mentioned the likelihood of a world government ā or should we better say: ādictatorshipā? Many people still can not believe it could go that far. Therefore I would like to add this link here, may be some of you do not know about this yet:
http://www.greattransformation.eu/index.php/about-the-conference
Please have a closer look at point 4) at the bottomā¦”
4) POLITICAL PARTICIPATION:
Technological innovation and political regulation can only be effective if “the people” participate in their various roles as polluters, producers and consumers of goods, citizens and voters. Democratic regimes are not well prepared for the level of participation that is required: Can free democratic societies cope with the effects of grave changes in the global climate, or might authoritarian regimes possibly be better placed to enforce the necessary measures?
Dear Christian – hmm, check out Russian and Chinese responses to Copenhagen – maybe it will be a good thing. Perhaps the EU will want to become, if it is not already, more authoritarian, but see how well the EU has responded to the Haitian earthquake, so speedily and so actively (cough), that I don’t think there is too much to worry about. The EU numpties couldn’t organise a p*** up in a brewery – it staggers me, their incompetence in this respect. I don’t understand how they can be so adept in taking away our sovereignity (I’m english, by the way). Must be the idiots we have in our parliament handing it to them on a plate.
Steve K (09:34:39) :
“Are you suggesting that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas? If thatās your point, then whatās your evidence?”
It was printed in New Scientist that CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
That is evidence.
The summers been pretty cool in NZ as well, we have had summer snow in the southern alps a few times over the last few weeks
Less snow than usual here on Vancouver Island, although we have been hit by the ‘Pineapple express’ a bit more than usual.
Pineapple Express link: http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Pineapple_Express
Won’t do the 2010 Winter Olympics much good unless we get some decent snowfall soon. Maybe we should ask the Aussies for theirs?
Hypothesis:
Low solar output tends to lower the freezing level.
As in the icy cold of space impinges on the Earth’s atmosphere.
My recollection from reports is that in Revolutionary America, late 18th century, it snowed in August in New England.
The Little Ice Age
Christian Ermecke (07:49:39) said:
The only world government the Chinese would accept is one where they are in charge.
I think claims of a world government conspiracy, while possibly accurate, are little to worry about at the moment.
Andrew30: I’m trying to get at the meaning of the phrase āThatās what they claim the co2 does,ā which K. Bray wrote.
I don’t know who they “they” he refers to is, nor what “does” refers to. However, based on K. Bray’s full post (“Warmists will be humiliated every time āGlobal Warmingā is mentioned. Thatās what they claim the co2 does. Forget āClimate Changeā. Their term āGlobal Warmingā will remind them it is folly every time it is used. “) he seems to be suggesting that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas — which is where the “warming” in “global warming” comes from: CO2 absorbs IR and — hence — warms the atmosphere. (Tyndall first recognized this 150 years ago — although I doubt he knew it was IR that was the reason.) So all I’m am tying to do is understand what he meant by what he wrote.
“Cooma resident Krystal Pernitsch said the wind chill factor made Mondayās high temperature of 59 degrees (15 degrees Celsius) feel like 48 degrees (9 Celsius).”
Is it just me or does that not sound a little warm for snow?
I’m trying to think of a way of blaming Australian snow on the gulf stream.
Magnus A (07:59:02) :
Magnus, thank you for that link. So CO2 is now responsible for Ice Ages, Runway Global Warming, and Plants being able to grow quicker. Australia might be the best location to ride out an Ice Age. The outback might become a very lush rain forest. or not.
Hmmm, if we *are* starting a new Ice Age Era, we will want the CO2 level as high as possible to make what land is available for farming as productive as possible. Maybe we will have green houses to hold our Green House Gas at higher levels then outside to try and meet the worlds food needs. oh the Irony if that happens.
Meanwhile, its all CO2 fault… its like a broken record. Everything is man’s fault. I specifically loved this quote about the use of WRONG Technology making it happen again.
…”Ian Fairchild, lead investigator, told the London newspaper Daily Telegraph: “We came up with an independent test of a theory that the earth, like a baked Alaska pudding, was once hot on the outside, surrounding a cold, icy surface. It happened naturally in the past, but the wrong use of technology could make it happen again.””
Jack Barnes
Gold Beach Oregon
Just because there is a lull in cold and snow weather in the US, doesn’t mean it is not still going on in the rest of the world this winter. It is still winter folks. The cold and warm circulates around the globe in waves.
āParts of northern China are seeing their harshest winter in decades, with Beijing this month receiving its heaviest one-day snowfall in 59 years. Temperatures in the capital were due to rise above freezing this week.
Herders moved thousands of others to safer pastures at lower altitudes ahead of the latest storm front, which is expected to last through Wednesday.
Temperatures in parts of Xinjiang are set to plunge to minus 45 degrees (minus 43 Celsius) by midweek, according to Xinjiang Meteorological Station forecaster Wei Rongqing.
Wei said snow was falling in the regionās Altay district, where accumulations had already risen to 3 feet (94 centimeters). Altay lies in Chinaās extreme northwestern corner, 1,600 miles (2,600 kilometers) northwest of Beijing, the capital.
āLivestock raising has been hit hard. Both wild animals and livestock havenāt been able to find food, but now forage has been allocated by the central government,ā Wei said. Some 500,000 people in total were affected by the harsh weather, he said. The figure includes those who suffered property damage and supply shortages or were isolated by snow drifts and icy roads.
Direct economic losses were being estimated at 300 million yuan ($44 million) as of Thursday and were expected to continue rising, Wei said.
āWeāre taking emergency measures, including evacuating remote areas,ā Wei said. Calls to Xinjiang government spokesmen rang unanswered.
Parts of northern China are seeing their harshest winter in decades, with Beijing this month receiving its heaviest one-day snowfall in 59 years. Temperatures in the capital were due to rise above freezing this week.ā
Extreme Cold, Snow Kills 4 In Northwest China
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/18/extreme-cold-snow-kills-4_n_426698.html
bill sticker “Wonāt do the 2010 Winter Olympics much good unless we get some decent snowfall soon. ” ???
It has snowed 136 cm at Whistler in the past seven days. Looks like lots of snow up there:
http://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/photos/index.htm
… and after the record snows of November. Surely there is enough snow on the ski slopes for the Lympix.
Are the reports wrong? Just wondering. Thanks.
Bill Sticker – Re Olympics
They are not holding the Luge on Granville Street. I for one am very glad there is no snow on the sreets, I could not imagine the problems if there was.
Whistler ( Where the Games except for the Inside Tracks like Speed Skating is actually being hosted) is in great shape so far. Perhaps not making the same 1200Km smoothing error of GISS and extrapolating the weather on Vancouver Island to the Coastal Mountains would be a better course of action.
http://www.onthesnow.ca/british-columbia/whistler-blackcomb/skireport.html
Another interesting comprehensive blog post reviewing the Climategate emails:
http://poneke.wordpress.com/2010/01/15/gate/
The Downunder author is a reputable journalist and says he read all of the emails before coming to his conclusions.
Sacrifice to the weather gods:
http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2009/6/the-aztec-solution
the more things change, the more they remains the same.
According to another site there’s currently record heat on the other side of Australia and in western India, the one comment unfortunately trumpeting that as evidence for AGW.
Not to worry about the current warm weather here in the US, long range forecasters predict Winter to return as the Arctic recharges (as seen in the arctic temp. graph)
ozspeaksup (07:24:02)
Here is at least a map of the glaciated areas in Tasmania:
http://soer.justice.tas.gov.au/2009/image/162/lan/id162-m-GlaciatedAreas-l.gif
Glaciation on the mainland did not amount to much – the Kosciuszko plateau and the highest parts of Snowy Mountains.
So, extreme hot weather in Australia pulls in freezing cold clouds from Antarctica and snows for a bit. In a few days it returns back to extreme hot weather,
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/ap/20100118/tap-as-australia-snow-79704af.html
There is nothing to be celebrate about!
If the Australian climate turns to have such extreme weather changes, this would be terrible for our agriculture and the economy.
We should be a bit more mature, otherwise our message is lost.
Re: Olympics
Cypress mountain will host Freestyle and Snowboarding competitions. The ski resort closed early due to rain but have plans to move snow from the peaks to the competition area for the Olympics.
Olympic venue info:
http://www.vancouver2010.com/cypress-mountain/
Cypress mountain info:
http://www.vancouver2010.com/olympic-news/n/news/cypress-mountain-alpine-runs-closed-early-to-preserve-snow–prepare-venue-for-2010-winter-games_209836IR.html
Magnus A (07:59:02) :
(…)
Also CO2 causes a new ice age, due to scientists:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Earth/Greenhouse_gases_may_trigger_ice_age/articleshow/3934692.cms
āForget warming, greenhouse gases may trigger ice ageā
That would be a wonderful thing!
We would want to get out out of the ice age, we would need warming. By the AGW scientists, CO2 causes warming, we’d need more CO2. But, too much CO2 caused the mess, so we would want less. But less CO2 gives cooling, of which we wouldn’t want any more. The CO2-AGW pushers would have nowhere to go!
Actually, this is a creative mis-representation of facts long-discussed here.
Researchers at the University of Birmingham found that 630 million years ago the earth had a warm atmosphere full of carbon dioxide
but was completely covered with ice, the Daily Telegraph reported.
The scientists studied limestone rocks and found evidence that large amounts of greenhouse gas coincided with a prolonged period of freezing temperatures.
Such glaciation could happen again if global warming is not curbed, the university’s school of geography, earth and environmental sciences warned.
Without seeing the original research and conclusions, it looks like the researchers accurately reported we can have ice ages with very high CO2 levels. From which the school, covering for the warmist agenda, concluded must mean that high CO2 can bring about ice ages.
Everyone shout together now, “Correlation is not causation!”
Another interesting distortion:
While pollution in the air is thought to trap the sun’s heat in the atmosphere, causing the planet to heat up, this new research suggests it could also have the opposite effect reflecting rays back into space.
The only “pollution” I know of which can cause warming is CO2 and methane, which back then could only have come from natural sources. New research suggests CFC’s can cause it, but that could use some more confirmation, and they seem likely to have been in short supply 630 million years ago. Everything else that can cause warming is not labeled as a pollutant. Otherwise, last I checked, the atmospheric pollutants of mankind universally lead to cooling.
This effect would be magnified by other forms of pollution in the earth’s atmosphere such as particles of sulphate pumped into the air through industrial pollution or volcanic activity and could create ice age conditions once more, the scientists said.
Sulfurous molecules cause cooling, no surprise. Yet my political senses tell me this is a developing gambit. Don’t even try the cheap sulfur dioxide hose method to induce global cooling to counter AGW, you’ll freeze everyone. Only the extortion-priced coming world regime of absolute CO2 control can possibly save us.
Make what you will of the last bit:
Ian Fairchild, lead investigator, told the London newspaper Daily Telegraph: “We came up with an independent test of a theory that the earth, like a baked Alaska pudding, was once hot on the outside, surrounding a cold, icy surface. It happened naturally in the past, but the wrong use of technology could make it happen again.”
It is possible to have a thin wispy and warm atmosphere, surrounding much-denser sheets of solid ice that are miles thick and show no signs of wanting to immediately thaw. Amazing. You know, that may be related to how the frozen dinners take longer to cook in the oven when placed on pieces of insulating firebrick rather than on a metal cookie sheet on the metal oven rack. Further research may be indicated.
In Melbourne yesterday it was a very cold day for summer. And the night before was 6 deg C below the average. We DID have 43 deg C last week and now are have an antarctic snap. But all up this summer in Melbourne is cooler than the last few years. Usually an el nino gives us a hot dry summer but generally this one’s been cool and damp. We just got 30mm rain over the last 2 days! I’m predicting less catastrophic bushfire stories out of us this year! For which I’m glad! That’s my unscientific prediction.
After the northern hemisphere had “2009: the summer that never was,” the southern hemisphere is having their “2010: the summer that never was.”
I’m not a climate-Scientologist, but that sure seems like climate and not just weather!
Newt Love (my real name) newtlove.com
Aerospace Technical Fellow: Modeling, Simulation & Analysis
Adam from Kansas (11:57:25) :
According to the DMI Explorer, mean temp at 80N is -33.15C / -27F
What Global Warming?
I find it hilarious to see people panicking about global warming and hotter than usual days in Australia when it’s normal to have hot days in summer (oh yeah – who would have thought of that?) Yet, when we have colder than usual days in summer, and now snow nobody appears to be concerned. The media of course focus on reporting the hotter days but not the colder days. It’s like the revelation that NASA is removing the thermometer readings from mostly the colder areas but keeping the hotter ones and the ones located at airports. We should have an alternative global mean temperature “authority”. One that discards readings at airports and other urbanized areas and keep those in more natural environments. It would be interesting to compare the two charts.
Following Christian’s link (thank you), here’s a presentation about “Climate Change and the Renewal of Civilisation” from this conference.
Impressive what can be build on such rotten fundamentals …
http://www.greattransformation.eu/images/stories/downloads/homer-dixon_presentation_opt.pdf
Watch the last page. Still with a question mark, but in the author’s view, dictatorships can handle the actions needed better than lousy democracies.
Longing for what? Fortunately not a German came up with it.
“Bridget H-S (09:49:52) :
[…]
4) POLITICAL PARTICIPATION:
Technological innovation and political regulation can only be effective if āthe peopleā participate in their various roles as polluters, producers and consumers of goods, citizens and voters. Democratic regimes are not well prepared for the level of participation that is required: Can free democratic societies cope with the effects of grave changes in the global climate, or might authoritarian regimes possibly be better placed to enforce the necessary measures?”
You know politicians in the West just HATE to be sacked by us voters. They would LOVE to be rulers forever once they purged their own party from competitors. Nobody likes to rot away in oblivion once he/she has tasted power. That’s why they love to phantasize about this. The best we can do is sack each one of them as early as possible. They become evil pretty fast otherwise. A fascinating example is Hugo Chavez.
kadaka (12:19:02) :
They can’t tell you how an Ice Age begins or ends, but they will tell you all day long how C02 can be high in an Ice Age. It can also be low during an Ice Age. It depends on which scenario they wish to scare us with.
Global Warming researchers. Sounds mischevious to me. What is a Global Warming researcher these days, a Hollywood Doomsday Sci-Fi script writer?
Global Warming causes Global Cooling is the rage of street jokes, and for good reason. If it looks like stupid, walks like stupid and sounds like stupid, it’s because really is stupid.
Australia’s record temperature was set 121 years ago this week – Jan. 16, 1889. It was 128 degrees Fahrenheit (53C.)
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2000/MichaelLevin.shtml
Must have been due to global warming.
OT – but where do we post things like this now :
http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2010/01/15/climate_ndet/
IT centric ‘newspaper’ –
What is wrong with this headline?
James Hansen and Anthony Watts Agree: Cold Weather, Warm Climate
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/18/james-hansen-and-anthony-_n_426931.html
Steve K (10:48:15) :
he seems to be suggesting that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas ā which is where the āwarmingā in āglobal warmingā comes from: CO2 absorbs IR and ā hence ā warms the atmosphere.
I am not quite sure what K. Bray is saying either. However,
– CO2 is a greenhouse gas
– H2O (water vapor) is the dominate greenhouse gas with about ten times the IR trapping power of CO2.
CO2, by itself, if doubled, cannot heat the earth by more than about one degree Celsius.
For runaway global warming to occur, the extra heating from the CO2 must lead to more evaporation of water leading to in increase of the specific humidity. It is the increased water vapor that leads to global warming.
But not an increase anywhere but rather an increase above 850 hPa. Why?
850 hPa is the altitude of the end of the convection zone. It is here, at the cloud tops, where water vapor condenses to form clouds. When water evaporates it takes latent heat. When water condenses, it releases latent heat. If the air above 850 hPa is dry then there is nothing stopping the released latent heat from radiating into space. For the answer, see a paper by Garth Paltridge, Albert Arking, & Michael Pook published a peer-
reviewed paper in Theoretical and Applied Climatology 26 February 2009 titled “Trends in middle- and upper-level tropospheric humidity from NCEP reanalysis data”. http://springerlink.com/content/m2054qq6126802g8/
Global warming 101.
Mike Ramsey
HB (12:22:09) said:
You know what they say about Melbourne, don’t you? “If you don’t like the weather, just wait five minutes.” š
Well, here in the San Francisco Bay Area we seem slated to get five inches (about 125mm) over the next few days.
Whereas the Sydney Morning Herald reports every unusually warm day as a global warming event, this cold spell … “was created by a combination of local thunderstorms and a rush of cold, southerly air”
Steve Goddard (13:01:34) :
Oh, no, that is politically incorrect. There wasn’t any Global Warming in 1889, there was Global Cooling the 1st scare. Global Cooling causes killer Heat Waves. Researchers have found that we actually live in a Negative Universe, we just thought it was positive.
Right now the pendulum is swinging in the direction of the skeptics in the game of “my dad can beat up your dad”.
The snows in Victoria trump a normal heat wave in Adelaide. Snow in New Orleans, Las Vegas, Houston, and Baghdad trump the more normal warming events brought out by the warmists.
These are part of our weather and should be expected. Then poor Edmunton turns into an ice cube. I’m still bothered by that one. The magnitude of the cold record is troubling.
How cold are we going to get in the next 30 years?
general
over on climaterealists.com Piers Corbyn has posted an open dare to the Harradin (sorry Mr Harabin) of the BBC to ‘put up or shut up’ re his potentially libellous article on Piers.
Makes very interesting reading.
If Harabin does not retract, I think Piers is on to a winner. My bet is that he will retract, else we could have a cute little action dragging the AGW/BBC through the High Court. Naturally the Powers that Be would not want that, so expect a retraction.
Get over to climaterealists.com and support Piers.
Quote: Christian Ermecke (07:49:39) :
“Hi everyone,
Oliver K. Manuel has mentioned the likelihood of a world government ā or should we better say: ādictatorshipā? Many people still can not believe it could go that far. Therefore I would like to add this link here, may be some of you do not know about this yet:
http://www.greattransformation.eu/index.php/about-the-conference
Please have a closer look at point 4) at the bottomā¦
Regards from darkening Germany
Christian”
Thanks Christian for the link. That is enlightening.
I am not nationalistic, I am not even opposed to the elimination of national boundaries, but I am opposed to the destruction of democracies and to the misuse of science as a propaganda instrument by those who would change our government without our consent.
For many years I blamed only NASA and the Geophysics Section of NAS for the fraud and deceit that I observed in our space science program.
I even voted for Al Gore for President in 2000 and was puzzled by his quiet withdrawal after winning the majority vote.
As in science, puzzles may be the key to the unknown.
Climategate and revised editorial policies at Nature and Science that prevent the publication of anything but mainstream consensus opinions seem to be consistent with the idea that an unholy alliance of Politicians, Scientists, and Publishers is the tip of an invisible world government that had planned:
a.) Al Gore was to become the first President, King or Savior.
b.) NAS => NAP [National Academy of Sciences became the NA Propaganda].
c.) EPA => NAP tool [“CO2 is a dangerous pollutant”].
d.) National sovereignty/boarders/governments were to disappear.
e.) Democracies would vanish.
That scenario is not a scientific fact, but it fits many puzzling observations.
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Former NASA PI for Apollo
The cool weather around the world just proves Kevin Rudd and Obama are right. It has just been revealed that GHG emissions have fallen in Australia during 2009 in the 4 eastern states and by a massive 4.2% in South Australia. See what we can do if we reduce CO2 emissions! ( tongue firmly planted in cheek)
{ Steve K (09:34:39) :
K. Bray : āThatās what they claim the co2 does.ā
Are you suggesting that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas? If thatās your point, then whatās your evidence? }
Steve K, co2 might influence a greenhouse temperature increase in large quantities, but not at the tiny amounts we are contributing.
Evidence? We have measured small co2 increases in the atmosphere, but yet a global temperature decline is actually being detected.
These current amounts of co2 are insignificant. The temperature is going the wrong way for the co2 argument. I suggest you buy some cotton thermal long underwear for the future… they are the only “warmers” I’ll trust in.
My modest suggestion is to allow the AGWers to “volunteer” for HHS to help save the planet. If they’re all really that concerned that is, what about it Big Al? Do you care?
Glacier Melt Rate to Be Re-Examined By Award-Winning UN Panel
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=a92m7lbAaQQc
I climbed Mount Kosciuszko back in February 1974, the day after snow fell on the peak. The snow may have gotten down to 6500 feet or so. At that time, buses would take tourists to the top of the peak, but on that day there were no buses running. So I had the trail all to myself, except for a brief time I spent at the top and a couple from Singapore arrived. they said they were the first people from Singapore ever to be on top Mount Kosciuszko (doubtful).
In any case, it does snow in summer on Mount Kosciuszko.
Steve K:
I am not the almighty and I cannot change the chemical and physical properties of carbon di-oxide as you imply.
I clarify that the level of increase of co2 is insignificant and not adequate in quantity to allow those large temperature increases as are claimed.
You need to find another horse to ride, in the “warming” race. co2 is about the size of an amoeba.
The Gray Monk (08:55:54) :
The South Western Cape in South Africa, boasts a number of glacier plains and valleys in the Hex River region and further northwards. I believe the last Ice Age in that area was 65o million to 450 million years ago. Driving down from Kimberley one can see a number of the distinctive U shaped valleys cut through the mountain chains.
_____
Reply:
There are very few current landforms on earth that were here 450-650 mybp. Erosion is sufficient to have removed such features long ago. To offer some perspective, the Rocky Mountains in the US are from 100-200 million years old (the imprecision in the number indicates the process of uplift continued for ~ 100 million years, as some ranges came up first followed by others). If we look at the age of the ROCKS in the Rocky Mountains, they range from 200-600 million years old.
The Appalachian Mountains rose about 450 million years ago and they’ve pretty much been worn down to their roots. Both of these orogenies are younger than your timeframe, so I’m pretty sure the landforms caused by glacial agents that can still be easily discerned in South Africa are most likely from glacial epochs that happened within the last several million years.
I hope this adds some perspective to the fascinating science of geology and your observations in particular.
Hah, snow on Mt Koz? It was there during January of the early 1960’s when the family had their annual Christmas holidays at Thredbo, though I don’t recall it snowing then, but then again……
In any case if the BOM computer models are indicating hotness but we are getting colder and snow falls, then the computer model is based on the wrong assumptions, aka “the theory is wrong”!
Douglas Hoyt,
Thanks for the confirmation that it does snow on Mt Koz during summer. And real winter weather during the height of summer can be experienced at the Savage River iron ore mine in Tasmania.
SMS (13:40:03) :
How cold are we going to get in the next 30 years?
Your best bet to get that question answered is to pay attention to the work of Piers Corbyn. After that, it’s a matter of how long the natural internal cycles continue lining up where they will as opposed to any external cycles (solar/galactic) and when they will reverse.
The uncertainties of the solar cycles and thier effects are bad enough, but things are further muddied due to the dismantling of the rural stations and the destruction/defacing of the historical data set.
Finally, the historical record is not exactly clear on how cold, but is very distinct in reporting unseasonable weather as the bane crop yields. Deep Cold spells are but one facet of what cooling portends.
A much better question is how widespread will the pressure on crops become, as well as disruptions on commerce in general.
Magnus A (07:59:02) :
This is classic stuff! Just look at the fantatstic (and I use the word its literal sense) reasoning:
So, lets work through that. Millions of years ago, there was an ice age, and there was loads, I mean loads, of CO2. That means one of two things, take your pick, people:
1. CO2 is the main driver of climate, and can cause ice ages
or
2. CO2 has nothing to do with the temperature, otherwise that ice age would not have been.
To top it all:
which is, in my book, random words strung together.
Info on glacial features in Victoria, Australia can be found at http://www.dpi.vic.gov.au/DPI/Vro/egregn.nsf/pages/eg_lf_sites_significance_8223_1 & http://www.dpi.vic.gov.au/dpi/vro/portregn.nsf/pages/port_lf_sig_sites_gd4 & http://www.dpi.vic.gov.au/dpi/vro/portregn.nsf/pages/port_lf_sig_sites_l2 This final one is an excellent thesis on glacial features of the Murray Darling Basin http://dtl.unimelb.edu.au/R/JMG6PUMCMMI9IQXUKL3JHQPGQ9G8BYSE7468LRTNER35S5X8H7-00927?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=66092&local_base=GEN01&pds_handle=GUEST
SteveK (14:45:55) said:
Now, please tell us what percentage of the atmosphere CO2 makes up and what percentage of the atmosphere H2O makes up, both of which are greenhouse gasses.
You should not assume that your sleight-of-hand would not be noticed.
Perhaps then we can move on to the next question.
For any Australians (particularly western australians) following this thread who are thinking of applying to Kevin Rudd for a rebate on their carbon taxes have a look at this new thread that I’ve just put up on ‘digginintheclay’.
Mapping global warming
The main conclusion reached in the thread is that global warming is hardly global and that based on the evidence shown in the colour coded trend maps presented in the thread, āglobal warmingā is not global but is in fact largely NH winter warming.
Iāve concluded stated that given what the maps show, itās hard to see how CO2 could be the cause of this warming unless the demon CO2 is happy to allow notable exceptions while being choosey in selectively warming parts of the planet while allowing other parts to cool at the same time.
I’ve suggested that Western Australians apply for a rebate on their carbon taxes and have also recommended where ‘pommies’ like myself should all go if we want a good tan this summer.
Regards
KevinUK
You can watch the system form that brought the “unprecedented”
lower altitude summertime snow to Australia here:
http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/data/comp/cmoll/cmoll.html
rbateman (14:39:52)
Your comment only begs for more answers though.
Where is all this going to lead us if our temperature record is so polluted with UHI and adjustments that we cannot understand the depth and significance of whatever changes in world temperatures do occur?
As you indicate, crop yields suffer as world temperatures decrease. There is likely a mathmatical correlation between world temperature and crop yields.
How are we to prepare for the coming decrease in world temperature if we don’t have correct temperatures to correlate too?
The bad science now being practiced by AGW alarmists is going to culminate in the suffering of countless individuals. Crop failures, insufficient gas and coal reserves, no nuclear etc.
layman’s though and questions:
If Co2 forms a heat trapping net over the earth. The net has very large holes. A layman’s thought: It is heardly catch any fish (heat) by this net.
Co2 is a Green house gas. It causes a positive feed back.
water vapor is more potent green house gas. Why does not water vapor generate more positive feed back?
If water vapor does generate more positive feed back, but no one mention it.
why?
If water vapor does generate more positive feed back, then warrying Co2 is meaningless. Co2 only a very small part of the question.
Can anyone answer this question?
Driving up and over Wild Dog Tier (Tas 1200m) Sunday afternoon (17/1/10) we were surprised to strike 5 cm of snow on the road. But yes, this is not unusual in the (mostly sub-alpine) alps of south-eastern Australia. To my knowledge it happens every year, in fact, as a frequent visitor, most years I have seen it/felt it…love it! It can often happen while bushfires are raging further north and often follow heatwaves – as per this one. Temperatures are rarely below freezing for very long.
Such snow events in and around the Alpine regions in late Dec and Jan must surely be said to be ‘common’ – but most folks dont know about them because few folks live there. Snow in settled areas is a little more unusual and certainly news worthy. But note the length of the record-keeping quoted, which is less than living memory – only 40 or 50 years. Old timers have there stories before then if you only ask them.
If you are looking for evidence of a cooling earth over the last 10-15 years S-E Aust is not the place to look, and these snowfalls are certainly not it.
Re the ‘how cold’ meme and rbateman’s reply: yes, look at crops and agriculture in general for the truest clues. Plants react to growing-degree-days, nutrients and the general environment, and have perfected their responses over millions of generations.
So, they’re likely to be more reliable than, say, GISS.
And from what I hear, yields are down almost everywhere……
“Nothing to see here!…move along!”
This is normal for SE Australia – the weather patterns are naturally quite extreme this time of year, so it’s not real news for either “believers” or “agnostics”. You’ll often find extreme heat (caused by a blocking high in the Tasman sea causing follow up highs to sit over the continent funneling desert wind into the temperate climes), followed by cold fronts coming up from the Southern Ocean bringing cold Antarctic air and moisture. Ive lived in the region all my life, and I don’t see anything unusual about this whatsoever.
Hell, only last week New Zealand’s main arterial route, State Highway 1, was closed to traffic for a day due to ice and snow. That’s mid summer here!
{ SteveK (14:45:55) :….
greenhouse gases, which comprise less than 1 percent of the atmosphere, are responsible for the Earth being 21 degrees Celsius higher (the difference between a frozen planet and one where life exists) than it would otherwise be. Small amount ā yes. Insignificant ā no. }
Steve,
Do you think I can get that 21 degree Celsius rise to work in my bedroom with the sunlight coming in the window, if I pump more co2 in here ? I’ll go up to 10% co2. Shouldn’t that be enough greenhouse gas to cook a turkey ? I suspect I would see a larger temperature increase by lighting a match, which I occasionally do for other foul greenhouse gasses that visit my air.
The real life laboratory is Mother Earth. Only time will tell tell us the truth and I think Earth can handle any amount of co2 that we humans throw at Her.
All the carbon sequestered in fossil fuels used to circulate on the surface of the planet and in the atmosphere. Not a problem then, not a problem now.
Chill… yeah, that’s the new term…. just… chill.
Wayne Findley (15:37:27) said:
Hmmm, the USDA is expecting record corn and soy yields in the US … although some are skeptical.
BernieL (15:36:26) :
If you are looking for evidence of a cooling earth over the last 10-15 years S-E Aust is not the place to look, and these snowfalls are certainly not it.
I don’t think we should be looking for evidence of cooling but evidence of the lack of warming that your statement provides.
I don’t know about you people, but you seem a little excited about all of this cooling.
I personally am fed up with this climate change and really really REALLY want to get back to global warming and take the shovel out the back of my van.
SMS (15:27:07) :
Crop yields decrease through unseasonable weather events. Like the Florida Citrus crop freezing, hail knocking the flowers off of fruit trees, late summer rains rotting wheat, etc.
Unseasonable weather events due to erratic climate patterns due to cooling.
Last on the list is failure of crops due to too short of a growing season.
In this age of modern technology and energy, there is no reason to suffer these things. Greenhouses and hydroponics on scale will see it through.
Rotating crops to more southerly climes in a timely manner is another answer.
The fly in the ointment is the agenda to turn us back to medieval times and the wanton destruction of the means to accurately assess regional temperatures.
Yes it’s unusual but I can remember two similar events in my life time.
(1) Snowfall in the Blue Mountains (NSW) on 19th November 1986. I’m from that part of the world and remember it well (I was 7 at the time and my grandmother was visiting from Queensland and had never experienced snow before in her life so it was something special for her, especially at such an unusual time of year);
(2) Summer snowfall in Tasmania one year when international cricket was being played in Hobart amid foul weather and it was reportedly snowing on top of Mt Wellington (although not at sea level where the match was being played).
But yes it’s very unusual anywhere in Australia to get summer snow.
Wayne Findley (15:37:27) :
Down 20% on the Canadian Wheat harvest if my memory is correct.
We should be concerned about how these things progress.
The only worry with C02 is can we get enough of it diverted to large scale greenhousing.
Oliver K. Manuel (13:43:39) : “I even voted for Al Gore for President in 2000 and was puzzled by his quiet withdrawal after winning the majority vote.”
Whoa! If his bitter, prolonged, and expensive court battles constituted a “quiet withdrawal”, I’d hate to see him actually fighting for the Presidency! š
Ray (07:30:25) :
Like the iguanas in Florida, do they have koala falling down trees when itās cold?
We call them Drop Bears, but its not a cold weather thing. just something international tourists need to look out for.
Back when I did my meteorology course with the Australian BoM one of the lecturers told us that, for unknown reasons, you get some years or a period of a few years where the patterns in the troposphere are more meridional or more zonal. In the zonal years the patterns result in more west – east flows and you get fewer extremes and in meridional years you get more north south flows and hence more weather extremes.
Seems to me that is what is happening in Australia and maybe the SH for the last few years. In the early 70s when I was an operational forecaster in Western Australia the flows seemed to be zonal and the weather was boring.
I’m in Perth at present and after a few cooler days last week the last couple of days were over 42 deg C. This has been seen before.
wenson (15:28:17) : “Co2 is a Green house gas. It causes a positive feed back. water vapor is more potent green house gas. Why does not water vapor generate more positive feed back?
If water vapor does generate more positive feed back, but no one mention it. why?
If water vapor does generate more positive feed back, then warrying Co2 is meaningless. Co2 only a very small part of the question.”
The fundamental radiative formulas show that the forcing is proportional to the logarithm of the increase in COĀ² or HĀ²O. Each successive positive feedback yields less and less return. The formulas are theoretical; whether they accurately describe the Earth’s climate system is questionable. A scientist once ‘proved’ that heavier-than-air craft can’t fly. There’s a big difference between theory and reality.
To learn more about this, wensonid, see:
http://climateaudit.org/2008/01/07/more-on-the-logarithmic-formula/
http://www.john-daly.com/bull-121.htm
http://www.geology.iastate.edu/gccourse/alumni/forcing/text.html
When is it going to snow in our neck of the woods?
I would think that corn production is up due to demand for ethanol, not due to climate as a driver of crop yields.
Where/when does the “Precautionary Principle” come into play?
It goes both ways, doesn’t it?
I have to agree with Gary Hladik (16:23:02):
Oliver K. Manuel (13:43:39) : āI even voted for Al Gore for President in 2000 and was puzzled by his quiet withdrawal after winning the majority vote.ā
Gore promptly recanted his original November 8th
‘quiet withdrawal,’ as this timeline shows: click
It says something about Gore’s character that he was ready to throw in the towel at the first hint of a setback.
Ray (07:30:25) :
Like the iguanas in Florida, do they have koala falling down trees when itās cold?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No Ray … they do that anyway, and their proper name is “drop bears.” They land on people’s heads and eat their brains… or something like that:
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Drop_Bear
A slight correction: it didnāt actually snow in Cooma, although it was sleety, and the maximum was 14-15 degrees Celsius, which is amazingly low for this time of year (by contrast, the forecast for tomorrow is 36 degrees Celsius, which is what youād expect for mid-summer).
It did snow at Jindabyne (about 60 kilometres south of Cooma): large snowflakes falling heavily for over half-an-hour. While Jindabyne is at the base of the Snowy Mountains before the climb up to Perisher and Thredbo, it doesnāt snow very often in Jindabyne itself, and in most years, there is no snow there even in winter (a bit like Copenhagen!).
While there have been some hot days this summer (it is summer after all), it has been on average quite cool. In Sydney today, and for the past few days, its been cool enough to wear a jacket. At this time of year it should be baking hot and starting to get humid.
It is also interesting that we are supposed to be having an El Nino, and yet its also been moderately wet in Sydney, and I think, the east coast in general.
Between the rain and cool weather, its really cramping on my beach time, and I was promised a long, hot glorious summer!
SteveK
You need to supply a valid email address to comment here. This is board policy. I have redacted many of your comments until this is resolved.
charles the moderator
Funny that there was no coverage in the mainstream media!
Apart from a couple heat waves (a result of northerly winds) summer seems mild so far this summer.
No, I live above 850hPa, and there are definitely clouds above me. Now we do radiate pretty effectively to space at night, and we also do so during the day as well, I’ll wager, but 850 hPA is not the upper end of convection.
HB: Thank God if we don’t see more bushfires this year. My family was burnt out of our home near Kinglake and I wouldn’t want anyone to go through that nightmare.
By the way, if you get a chance to see it, read Inferno: The Day Victoria Burned. We survived the fires, but had no idea how badly we were let down by governments, emergency services and green ratbags (well, we knew about the greens because they have dominated our council for years!!!!). I couldn’t put the book down and now as we rebuild I am very, very angry.
Quote: Smokey (17:03:01) :
“Gore promptly recanted his original November 8th āquiet withdrawal,ā as this timeline shows: click
It says something about Goreās character that he was ready to throw in the towel at the first hint of a setback.”
Thanks, Smokey, for the timeline link. It appeared to be a pitched battle, up to this ending:
Dec. 12: The Florida House of Representatives votes to appoint electors for Bush. The U.S. Supreme Court overturns the Florida Supreme Court, ruling 5-4 that there may be no further counting of Florida’s disputed presidential votes.
Dec. 13: Gore concedes; Bush, as president-elect, calls for reconciliation.
I hope that my hypothesis is wrong. If Al Gore and George Bush were play acting – each being but puppets in a show – then WUWT and other AGW skeptics face a far more formidable foe than NAS, the UN’s IPCC, and Al Gore.
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
These examples of unusual weather in Australia/Tasmania, as well as our unusual winter in the U.S. result from meridional flow–they say little or nothing about global trends. Right at this moment in the U.S. we have gone back to zonal flow for a time, but I’d bet the meridional flow will return soon. We have been doing this since august it appears. One month meridional followed by a month zonal–cold, warm, cold, warm…
I think people are missing the point of the item. Not just snow in the Australian mountains during the height of summer down under (Jan/Feb) but down to record low levels in the modern (recorded era). If this happenned in the earlier part of the 20th century then I wouldn’t be surprised either.
I live in the Lower North Island of New Zealand and have been recording snowfalls as seen from a distance out on the plains to the two main mountain ranges that divide the North Island here for the past 30 years. The Tararua Ranges (Ave MSL 5,000 ft/1500m) and the Ruahine Ranges further north(Ave MSL 5,500ft/1700m) can be snow free as seen from the plains for several months of the year. I have never seen snow on them in February. In the period 1980-2009 I have only seen snow on the Tararuas in January in 1997 and 1998 (both El nino years).
The earliest snowfall for a new cold season has been on March 4th in 1983 and 2006. I’m talking about snow that you can see from 30 miles away, not the stuff that you have to be amongst to notice.
Despite all of the usual high temperatures in all of the usual places in Australia, I am not at all surprised to see low level snowfalls for Australia, it could have just as easily been here. Typically though that same depression that brought a southerly flow to the S.E. corner of Oz will now bring sub-tropical humidity and rain to much of N.Z. over the weekend. Although there maybe a southerly kick-back, similar to what Oz received, as the depression passes through.
For my neck of the woods this has been the 5th coolest summer to date in the past 55 years going by maximum temperatures alone. Yesterday we cracked 25 degrees C for the first time this hot season, the 5th latest date for such an event. The top 7 are; 1992-3 Mar 2nd, 1982-3 Feb 16, 1963-4 Feb 7th, 1976-7 Feb 2nd, 2009-10 Jan 18th, 1991-2 Jan 13th, 2006-07 Jan 12th. All of these are El Nino Years, and the first three as well as 1991-2 are also affected by large tropical volcanic eruptions as well. To me the fact that two summers from the end of this current decade feature without the influence of vulcanism is quite significant.
IMHO what all of this shows is that far from being a runaway greenhouse as the warmistas would have us believe, we are seeing a continuance of the natural variability with El Nino/La Nina (as well as other local oceanic/climate phenomena) having a strong impact on our varying weather/climate.
On the other hand if we start to see a trend of continuing cool summers and harsher winters in most places worldwide then we should be really worried. This would break the trend of variability seen in the ACTUAL data for the past 50 or so years. We can only keep observing, recording.
Go to the bottom (just about) of the right-hand sidebar and click on “Tips and Notes to WUWT”
Anthony and WUWT readers,
Can we please cease with the “weather is not climate” department? Even if thousands of people came to this blog and described the “weather” in their back yard, it wouldn’t even come close to describing global conditions. Every “weather is not climate” post I could find – every single one – tried to point out unusually cold temperatures at some location in the world. And yet . . . .
http://nsstc.uah.edu/atmos/news/2009_full.jpg
Anyone who cares passionately about science (as you all appear too) should encourage Anthony to discontinue the “weather is not climate department”, and its ilk, immediately. Anyone who has, presumably, studied science, and in particular someone that presumes to have a scientific understanding of climate and the global warming issue, should be embarrassed post such rubbish. It contributes nothing.
(for those of you ready to point out the cartographic distortion in the figure, go ahead and check: the global anomaly was +0.259 C)
It is worth mentioning that five or six years ago various Australian climate scientists were claiming we would never see any snow at any level in this country within a few years. The last two snow seasons have been rather good, and now this.
It was 38 degrees Celsius here on the Gold Coast SE Queensland yesterday. I had already given myself the day off before it got hot so I was very happy. Back to normal today, 30 Celsius and breezy.
Koala’s still literally high in the tree’s.
SteveK (14:45:55) :
‘..greenhouse gases, which comprise less than 1 percent of the atmosphere, are responsible for the Earth being 21 degrees Celsius higher (the difference between a frozen planet and one where life exists) than it would otherwise be. Small amount ā yes. Insignificant ā no.’
I thought greenhouse gases made up 7 to 10 percent of the atmosphere, of which, CO2 makes up about 3 percent of the greenhouse gases.
Tell us. How is that 2.5 amplification number been working for you in the last 10 years?
Phil M (18:41:48) :
I agree with you that all this discussion of weather does not equate to global conditions (see my post above at 17:43:29). But letting people talk about what is going on in their neck of the woods is fun–even if biased towards reporting of cooler than normal. And every now and then I learn something interesting. I think we can live with “weather is not climate” and just keep it in perspective.
Snore. We had hail on Christmas Day in 2009 in VIC. But it doesn’t make me think it has not been hotter than hell lately. Its all just projections, another projected trait of climate change being increasing instability and climate extremes across the globe. Which could mean alternating freeze and boil for us in AU. Though I sort of hope not, changing into the long underwear from the swimming togs is such a bother.
Phil M (18:41:48) :
No, I would not have Anthony cease the “Weather is not Climate Dept.”.
Why? Because Weather is an Instance of Climate, and Climate is both regional and moving to one state or another, chiefly a higher or lower state.
Weather and Climate are currently moving towards a lower state, one with less energy but erratic in dispersion.
When there is a hot place somewhere on the Globe, whether it is record-breaking or not, it is cited as “proof” of Global Warming. There are fewer of these places with each passing year.
The majority of Weather and Regional Climate states are now cooder.
The “Weather is not Climate Dept.” is for all those people out there who have just been whacked with a cold month and then being told thier area was the warmest in X # of years.
Why would anyone want Anthony to take away the only relief valve in existence from these insane GISS/MET anomalies?
And furthermore, the Weather does NOT belong to GISS, NOAA, MET, IPCC or NCDC. These Johnny-come-latelys take a back seat to Man’s love of discussing the Weather, lately of which these Agencies have been misrepresenting in a very bad way.
REPLY: Plus, I’m doing exactly what I did on TV for 25 years – point out interesting and record setting weather events when they happen. Show me a TV meteorologist or weathercaster that doesn’t do this regularly, and I’ll show you someone who is likely unemployed. BTW you’ll find warm stories here too, such as the recent “warmest January day in UAH sat data”. Should I stop doing that too? – Anthony
Damn it! How does global warming do that?
rbateman: “And furthermore, the Weather does NOT belong to GISS, NOAA, MET, IPCC or NCDC. These Johnny-come-latelys take a back seat to Manās love of discussing the Weather, lately of which these Agencies have been misrepresenting in a very bad way.”
Extremely well said.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Kevin Kilty (17:33:26) :
Mike Ramsey (13:05:21) :
[snip] No, I live above 850hPa, and there are definitely clouds above me. Now we do radiate pretty effectively to space at night, and we also do so during the day as well, Iāll wager, but 850 hPA is not the upper end of convection.
In atmospheres, the convection zone is the lower part of the atmosphere where heat transport is primarily by convection. On the earth, water vapor makes transport by radiation in the lower troposphere less efficient. The earth’s atmosphere is semi-transparent to long wave radiation. The top of the convection zone is about 850 hPa. Above the convection zone you have the radiative zone where energy is transported by radiation.
I concede that my use of the phrase “cloud tops” might have been less than 100% accurate. š
Intense cumulonimbus convection can push cloud tops above the conduction zone and into the radiative zone. However, as this air cools via radiation loss, it becomes cold and dry. This dry air subsides (sinks) reducing the upper troposphere specific humidity and thus increasing outbound long wave radiation (OLR) efficiency. So right at the cumulonimbus top, OLR is suppressed but in the much larger area surrounding the cumulonimbus cloud, dry subsidence increases OLR efficiency.
See the paper by William M. Gray, Professor Emeritus, Dept of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University, titled “Climate Change: Driven by the Ocean not Human Activity” for more details.
Mike Ramsey
Phil M (18:41:48) :
Anthony and WUWT readers,
Even if thousands of people came to this blog and described the āweatherā in their back yard, it wouldnāt even come close to describing global conditions. Every āweather is not climateā post I could find ā every single one ā tried to point out unusually cold temperatures at some location in the world. And yet . . . .
And yes, I have seen the link.
I really think Phil M, that the many readers on this site are well aware of the distinction between weather and climate. I cannot speak for Anthony but if I ran a popular blog and wanted to keep up the interest and not bore people stupid with the averaged abstraction that is climate, and if I wanted to include readership from all over the world, then I would include oddities of local weather occurring in your neck of the woods, right now. The ‘weather is not climate’ label does not appear to be a campaign to project local weather anomalies globally, at least not on this site.
I do not know where you live, but I appreciate my locality (35S,149E, 1964ft) being included in this fascinating, ongoing, indeterminate discussion.
To see snow showers on the Brindabella mountains (4100ft) this January morning was something I have not seen in my 40years in this location. Our average January max. is 27.7C with 2 days per month over 35C and average min. is 13C . This current welcome cool weather is all part of the rich tapestry of inland life, next week our inland summer temperatures will be ??
If you guys (Ramsey and Kilty, especially) are going to discuss convection zones, radiating heat, clouds, etc., at least state the altitude in feet so that the rest of us poor dumb laymen can follow along. Out of curiousity, what is “hPa” by the way? Finally, where can I find this paper by William Gray? He’s been a favorite of mine, he’s had the courage and the sense to speak out for quite a while on this subject. Is it understandable enough for the layman?
Steve K (09:34:39) :
K. Bray : āThatās what they claim the co2 does.ā
Are you suggesting that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas? If thatās your point, then whatās your evidence?
Is it polyatomic?
This January seems very mild for Sydney. I recall plenty of hotter ones in the last few decades. I’m not sure what BOM are reporting, but I suspect their measurements will contradict my senses.
Can’t help wondering if Melbourne and Adelaide have been as hot as claimed. I wonder what fiddles are done there? Seems very odd to receive record-breaking summer snow in the mountains while also having Melbourne temperatures sufficiently steamy to warm those warmers’ hearts.
Phil M (18:41:48) :
The earth has been cooling for 5 years. There has been no warming since 1995.
Kevin Kilty (18:59:15) :
The reason I’d like Anthony to stop saying ‘weather is not climate’ whenever many cold records are broken is because the earth has been cooling for 5 years. Warming isn’t happening.
āwarmest January day in UAH sat dataā.
that was weather. weather is not climate š
rbateman (19:35:27) :
Phil M (18:41:48) :
No, I would not have Anthony cease the āWeather is not Climate Dept.ā.
ya, leave it, after all the chihuahua trolls need an ankle to nip at
‘Like the iguanas in Florida, do they have koala falling down trees when itās cold?’
No, because koalas are ~warm blooded~
Also second hottest year on record? Lol! Then why did I spend this entire summer wearing my winter clothes…except for maybe a week or so when it was moderately warm.
~ Jack, Australia
Magnus A (07:59:02) : So Australia have record hot ā¦and snow. So, they were right all the time. The weather has become extreme. We didnāt listen!
Also CO2 causes a new ice age, due to scientists:
āForget warming, greenhouse gases may trigger ice ageā Aaaaaah!
But it’s a warm snow!! And so it will be a “warm ice age”. In fact, it will be the Hottest Ice Age in 12,000 years !!!! š
Steve K (07:35:52) : Oliver K. Manuel writes: āBeneath the tip of the Climategate iceberg is this emerging shadow of an unholy alliance of Politicians, Scientists, and Publishers ā directed by a still invisible world government.ā
What does this have to do with the weather in Australia?
Probably that the Australian BOM announced they’ve “recomputed” their temperatures… I went looking for a link to document this and could not find one though. Don’t remember where I saw it. So until a reference can be found I might have just confused them with some other country š
Phil M (18:41:48) : Can we please cease with the āweather is not climateā department?
NO! Not for a moment. Please! This is a blog by a weather guy that lists “weather” in the masthead as a major topic area. I’ve learned a great deal about how weather is driven by reading postings here and I’d like to learn more.
I’d rather ask “Can we please cease with the ‘Yet Another Troll Whining’ department?” The weather is highly interesting, while trolls are like fleas. You notice them, but not very much, and just wish they were eradicated.
Anyone who cares passionately about science (as you all appear too) should encourage Anthony to discontinue the āweather is not climate departmentā,
Anthony: Please Please Please continue to do the “weather is not climate” postings, but if you could add a note or two about the weather systems behind it that would be “way cool”. Is it the nino / nina, or the PDO, or the thinner atmosphere? Is it a well known collision of particular fronts? Or even just “They get this kind of thing when the stratocumulonimboFuzzyBall clouds hit a tropical Fisbin” ;-;
Thank you!
And if you get a chance, I’d love to see an article about the Jet Stream being “loopy” and is it more “flat” in one phase of the PDO and more “loopy” in another? The GIStemp tendency to ‘infill’ from 1000 km away could be seriously broken if the “baseline” from 1950-1980 was a “cold PDO” and then the “offsets” were applied 1000 km away during a “warm PDO” with a flat flow to the jet stream… or whatever the actual facts might be.
That kind of “primer on why” for the weather events would help me, at least, get a better handle on how things like GIStemp go so wrong…
Wow!
The Arctic has gone quite cold
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
Because of the power of the press, your average Australian thinks of the decade ended Dec 2009 as one of prolonged drought. It was, in a few unfortunate places. Overall, this last decade had the second highest rainfall nation-wide since 1900. See this official BOM graph.
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii14/sherro_2008/Rainfallto2010.jpg?t=1263894865
I read that during the last heatwave that possums fell out of the trees:
http://www.theage.com.au/national/native-animals-just-fell-out-of-trees-during-heatwave-20100113-m6zq.html
I did some hiking on Mt Kosciuszko in 2001, probably 9 years ago to the day almost. There was no snow, it was hot and there were these huge flies that would be all over you and occsionally give you a nasty ‘bite’. Wish we had some snow then, I don’ t think the flies would have appreciated it.
I phoned a friend of mine who lives 30km south of Cooma. He confirmed that the temperature early Monday was about 32F (0c) for several hours and that snow fell for about 70 minutes and built up a light cover on the ground and trees. He let the dogs out to play in it for a while . Although snow falls are not rare there in winter this is the most significant snow event – and the only one in the memory of those living in the area to occur in mid summer. The temperture did warm up later in the day at their elevation of about 3100ft but the temperature at Thredbo ski resort (in the Alps to their west) only manged to make it to 34F.
Although weather – not climate, this is/was a significant weather event, just as the Melbourne heatwave was last year.
FTR I have seen a full cover of snow on Mount Kosc in mid summer and such an event does occur every few years, but snow down to the plains below is unheard of in mid summer.
BTW, those large flies are an annual event during summer, and no they don’t like the cold. I agree, the sting is nasty and they can go through denim jeans no problems. They are attracted to bright colours so jungle green is good.
Larry (21:28:24) :
If you guys (Ramsey and Kilty, especially) are going to discuss convection zones, radiating heat, clouds, etc., at least state the altitude in feet so that the rest of us poor dumb laymen can follow along.
http://www.tpub.com/content/aerographer/14269/css/14269_75.htm
Out of curiosity, what is āhPaā by the way?
1 pascal (Pa) = 1 N/m2 = 1 kg/(mĀ·s2)
So a pascal is a measure of pressure (force per area). The higher up you go, the lower the pressure.
1 hectopascal (hPa) ā” 100 Pa ā” 1 mbar.
Finally, where can I find this paper by William Gray?
Google “Climate Change: Driven by the Ocean not Human Activity”
I found a PDF available on the web but I am not sure that it was a legal copy.
Heās been a favorite of mine, heās had the courage and the sense to speak out for quite a while on this subject. Is it understandable enough for the layman?
Dr. Gray is a favorite of mine as well. He certainly has guts. The paper is fairly accessible. He does a top notch job giving a general review of AGW before going into how the oceans really control the climate. The general problem that experts have is knowing what the lay audience doesn’t know so that all the needed pieces are laid out and then built upon. IMO, the AGW review does a good job in this area.
Mike Ramsey
Sort of El Ninoesque, from the antipodal perspective. From summer heat to winter chill in a mere few weeks.
RE: yonason (07:46:53) :
Ah, yes. Entropy. The unstoppable destroyer.
There are blizzards in southern England, snow in the Aussie summer, mild weather in the Pacific NW, flash floods in the Middle East as I saw in the BBC today, greening in the Sahara. The comforting thing is that whether the climate eventually gets warmer or cooler thre are places to go. Greenland will be very pleasant in the heatwave, while Alice Springs would be great in the Ice Age. It’s just a matter of where to buy a few acres of currently useless land to set up my vineyards.
Mike Ramsey:
Thanks for the information. So, we are talking about an altitude that would be pretty close to Denver’s, for example. Well, I’ll follow along and try to learn more about this complicated subject.
Coldest minima on record in several southern Qld centres this week (5C at Stanthorpe) after a cool change. But that happens from time to time. Still b. hot here in NQ. All to do with which direction the wind blows from.
Peter of Sydney (12:48:09) :
I find it hilarious to see people panicking about global warming and hotter than usual days in Australia when itās normal to have hot days in summer (oh yeah ā who would have thought of that?) Yet, when we have colder than usual days in summer, and now snow nobody appears to be concerned. The media of course focus on reporting the hotter days but not the colder days. Itās like the revelation that NASA is removing the thermometer readings from mostly the colder areas but keeping the hotter ones and the ones located at airports. We should have an alternative global mean temperature āauthorityā. One that discards readings at airports and other urbanized areas and keep those in more natural environments. It would be interesting to compare the two charts.
REPLY:
Peter you can find the data here:
Listed here are a set of historical temperature graphs from a large selection of mostly non-urban weather stations in both hemispheres….. from John Daly’s site
http://www.john-daly.com/stations/stations.htm
Richard Sharpe (15:59:18) :
Wayne Findley (15:37:27) said:
And from what I hear, yields are down almost everywhereā¦ā¦
Hmmm, the USDA is expecting record corn and soy yields in the US ā¦ although some are skeptical.
REPLY:
It is more complicated than that. As you noted some are skeptical.
November 13, 2009 **USDA Declares Half Of Midwest As Agricultural Disaster Area***
http://www.marketskeptics.com/2009/11/usda-declares-half-of-midwest-as.html
Here are the articles on the coming food crisis: http://www.marketskeptics.com/search/label/Food_Crisis?max-results=100
“Farmers across America and in many other parts of the world are calling 2009 the worst harvest theyāve ever seen in their lives, owing largely to extended bouts of bad weather. At the same time the U.S. Department of Agriculture is officially forecasting bumper crops, while close to three-fourths of the countryās farmland is in areas declared eligible for federal disaster assistance due to failed crops.
A popular farmersā Web site is chock full of stories of entire crops of soybeans rejected for moisture damage, long delays in harvesting corn only to find out the corn is moldy, damaged or too light to be used as animal feed or even ethanol, and farmers unsure if theyāll even have a farm for another year due to the losses theyāve taken.” http://www.homelandstupidity.us/2010/01/07/spring-food-crisis-may-trigger-economic-collapse/
However there is also this: (note poor quality of grain due to weather)
2009 corn, soybean crops break records
“This morning the U.S. Department of Agriculture released its final production numbers revealing U.S. farmers produced record corn and soybean crops….
Because of this year’s overall poorer corn quality and lower corn test weight, it may require more corn to meet domestic needs, added Jerry Gidel, president of North America Risk Management Services. For instance ethanol may need an additional 50 to 150 million bushels over current estimates and feedability of the corn will be watched.” So actually from a farmers point of view it was a “poor harvest” with many problems. Record crops yields are worthless if those crops are full of mold and they are undesirable for biofuel production because the mold and bacteria interfere with the fermentation process. The left overs from ethanol production, distillers grains, is a livestock feed additive so again moldy grain, that would poison livestock, would not be used in ethanol production. That combined with water shortages to farms in California and freezes in Florida puts a different twist on the USDA’s “record harvest”
In 2007 the target price for a bushel of corn in 2007 was $2.63 (Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002). In 2008 a bushel fetched $6.42 on the commodity futures market. At the feed store the price of grain doubled or tripled.
SMS (16:58:37) :
I would think that corn production is up due to demand for ethanol, not due to climate as a driver of crop yields.
Where/when does the āPrecautionary Principleā come into play?
It goes both ways, doesnāt it?
REPLY:
Corn production is up because the price paid for corn tripled thanks to bio-fuel quotas mandated by Congress. Congress also did a big foot on tobacco a few years ago, mandating new and expensive drying sheds, so a lot of farmers got out of tobacco. My neighbors used to plant cotton and tobacco now they plant corn instead. From a maximum of 16,717,000 acres in 1995 the amount of cotton planted has fallen to 8,989,000 acres in 2009. Similar data on corn and tobacco is not readily available from the USDA at least at first glance.
Cotton data: http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/ers/89004/Table04.xls
Vegetables Annual Summary
” This file contains data on fresh market vegetables, including seasonal acreage for harvest, planted acres, yield, production, intentions to plant processing vegetables; marketing year average price, value and utilization.”
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/MannUsda/viewDocumentInfo.do?documentID=1183
Human causes global warming because most of their daily activities involve the use of oil and fuel which are widely known as a primary source of pollution and contaminants that trigger global warming.